Eligibility

Both custom Stripe and PayPal custom payment gateways are available to you as long you are on the Professional plan or higher.

Connecting Your PayPal Account

In order to use PayPal as a custom payment gateway, you'll have to meet the following requirements:

Be on the Professional plan or higher

Price your course as a non-recurring payment in USD - If your course is priced as anything other than a one-time purchase in USD, students will not be able to purchase that course using PayPal.

Have a PayPal Business account - PayPal uses API credentials to identify each account, and these credentials are needed to verify that a request is being made through a valid PayPal business account.

If you meet these requirements, then complete the following steps to set up PayPal as a custom payment gateway for your school:

Go to PayPal Developer and sign in to your PayPal business account.. Keep in mind that this is different from the normal PayPal site, so ensure that you are on the right page before starting.

Click Dashboard in the top right corner.

From there, visit My Apps & Credentials in the Dashboard.

Scroll down to REST API apps and make sure to click Live instead of Sandbox.

Click Create App.

Fill out the appropriate information. The App Name doesn't matter, but we do recommend calling it “Teachable” so it’s easier to keep track. Once finished, click Create App.

In the Live API Credentials section, you’ll see your PayPal account email, Client ID, and Secret (aka API) key. If you do not have a PayPal business account, this information will not be shown. Click the Show button to reveal and copy the Secret API key.

Return to Settings > Payments in your school admin. Click the Switch button to use the custom PayPal payment gateway and copy this information into the Accept PayPal Payments section.

Click Save and you’re done.

Connecting Your Stripe Account

In order to use Stripe as a custom payment gateway, you'll have to meet the following requirements:

If you are able to set up a Stripe account, complete this process to set up Stripe as a custom payment gateway for your school:

Click Settings in the admin sidebar and navigate to the Payments section.

Click on the Switch button in the Accept Credit Card Payments section.

Then, click the Connect with Stripe button.

You'll be redirected to a new webpage on Stripe where you can log in to an existing Stripe account or create a new one.

If you’re creating a new account, fill out the required information. When you’re done, click Authorize access to this account.

Otherwise, log in to your existing account to connect with Stripe.

Upon successful connection, you will see an alert at the bottom of your screen reading Stripe Connect gateway has been successfully set up.

Your Client ID and API Key will appear inside the Stripe area.

Payouts

Stripe and PayPal Custom Payment Gateway

When using custom payment gateways, Primary owners are paid out by either Stripe or PayPal directly when the transaction takes place. Stripe and/or PayPal will pay you out in whichever currency you have specified within each respective payment processor.

Mixed Payment Gateways

Mixed payment gateways occur when a school has a custom payment gateway for one processor (Stripe or PayPal), but still uses the Monthly Payment Gateway for the other.

To best demonstrate, let's use a hypothetical scenario where a school has set up the custom Stripe gateway, but not the custom PayPal gateway. In this scenario, if a student purchases a course through Stripe (i.e. uses a credit/debit card), their payment would be processed through the custom Stripe gateway, and as a result, would be paid out directly.

Alternatively, if the student had purchased the course through PayPal, their payment would be processed through the Monthly Payment Gateway, and as a result, would be paid out on the rolling monthly payout schedule. Here’s a chart that illustrates how payouts work with only a custom Stripe gateway set up:

In an opposite scenario where a school has set up only the custom PayPal gateway, but not the custom Stripe Gateway, the behavior would be similar. Here’s a chart that illustrates how payouts work with only a custom PayPal gateway set up:

Authors and Affiliates

It is the responsibility of the primary owner to distribute earnings to authors and affiliates. As such, it’s up to the school owner to determine their preferred payout schedule and method (e.g. PayPal, bank transfer, cash, check, etc.) for their school's authors and affiliates.

You can track author and affiliate earnings using transaction reports. To determine the amount owed to your authors and affiliates, export a CSV of your transaction report processed through your custom payment gateways. Reference the Affiliate Email and Author Email columns to determine which affiliates and authors should receive a commission for each transaction that was processed by your custom payment gateways.

Transaction Fees

Free

Basic

Professional

Business

Processing Fees

Payout Fees

All Custom Gateways*

-

-

0%

0%

0

0

Please note that there may be processing fees depending on how your custom payment gateway has been configured. If you have any questions about processing fees, reach out to your payment processor (i.e. Stripe and/or PayPal).

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